less than the orders of Dutty, the treacherous contracts of Toussaint,

thinner than a single US marine quartermaster’s log

or the manifest of an Atlantic squarerigger

yet these are the pages we worked together

these the rivers we’ve translated

and our voices rode over the various waves

in a confluence of uncounted languages

how could we know the nature of the crossroads

the words you commanded for your rest

when we last poured gifts to the four corners of the world

but you knew, even then. And perhaps a single whisper

half-prayed to loa or saint passed your lips

in a language I might have understood

had I been listening

had I understood the fountain

understood the twin snakes and what they gave

had I known the woman at the river

the green of the early leaves of cimorra

the black of our lengthening shadows

or the red of eroded earth

but now, out of the unconstrained river of your song

out of the wind and the small dust

out of the birth of another unknown to me

out of all I’ve known and lost, and all you cannot lose

out of the languages we could almost share

out of all we could not

Louis, I have made for you this song.

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About the Poet

W.F. Lantry, native of San Diego, received his Maîtrise from L’Université de Nice, and PhD in Creative Writing from University of Houston. His poetry collections are The Structure of Desire (Little Red Tree 2012), winner of a 2013 Nautilus Award in Poetry, The Language of Birds (Finishing Line 2011), a retelling of Attar’s Conference of the Birds, and a forthcoming collection The Book of Maps. Recent honors include the Hackney Literary Award in Poetry, Lindberg Foundation International Poetry for Peace Prize (in Israel), and Potomac Review Prize. His work appears in Atlanta Review, Asian Cha and Aesthetica. He currently works in Washington, DC and is an associate fiction editor at JMWW.